Unitech top bosses walk out of jail after spending a night

NEW DELHI: Real estate major Unitech Ltd top bosses, facing charges of alleged cheating, today walked out of Tihar Jail here after spending a night in prison despite succeeding to get an interim bail yesterday.

They had to spend a night at Tihar Jail as they had yesterday failed to get the release warrant on time from the court.

Unitech Ltd Chairman Ramesh Chandra, Managing Directors Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra and Director Minoti Bahri were sent to judicial custody following a drama during which they succeeded in getting interim bail for three days by a sessions court, hours after being taken into custody by a trial court.

Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, who represented the accused, said they have got the release warrants today from Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Rao after which they were released from the prison.

Additional IG (Prison) Mukesh Prasad confirmed that the company officials were released in the evening after the release warrants were received from the court.

Yesterday, the accused officials had managed to secure interim bail from the sessions court in a complaint case in which they were remanded to 14-day judicial custody.

The bail order was passed at around 5.20 PM yesterday by the sessions judge and by the time sureties were prepared for the accused, duty magistrate Ankita Lal had left the court due to which the release warrants could not be prepared.

The top officials of the company who had appeared in the magisterial court in pursuance to the Non Bailable Warrants against them were sent to judicial custody at around 2.30pm.

The complaint case was filed by chartered accountant Sanjay Kalra and his business partner Devesh Wadhwa - who had booked a property in Habitat Apartments in Greater Noida developed by Unitech.

The project was delayed and the company had promised to refund the amount along with simple interest of 11 percent per annum by October last year before the State Consumer Commission and sessions court last year.

Advocate Kundan Mishra appearing for Kalra had argued that despite the court's earlier order, Unitech had not refunded them the complete payment.

The company officials had claimed in the court that due to financial constraints and circumstances beyond their control, they were not able to make the payment to the complainants.